Module 3 Product
Setting One's Self Apart- Sean Vong
"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Supporting Quotations
"He put the glass to his lips, and drank at one gulp. A cry followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on, staring with injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as I looked there came, I thought, a change—he seemed to swell—his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and alter—and at the next moment, I had sprung to my feet and leaped back against the wall, my arm raised to shield me from that prodigy, my mind submerged in terror.
“O God!” I screamed, and “O God!” again and again; for there before my eyes—pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like a man restored from death—there stood Henry Jekyll!" - Lanyon's description of the transformation of Jekyll to Hyde finally connects the relationship between the two. This is the moment in the novel where the reader clearly can distinguish the dualism of Jekyll and Hyde and how Jekyll successfully set himself apart form society.
"It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date . . . I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements." - One of the most important quotations from the novel, this statement from Jekyll identifies the Victorian ideal of human duality and the motive for Jekyll's creation of the potion.
"[B]ut I was still cursed with my duality of purpose; and as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of me, so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl for licence. Not that I dreamed of resuscitating Hyde; . . . no, it was in my own person that I was once more tempted to trifle with my conscience. . . .
[However,] this brief condescension to my evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul. And yet I was not alarmed; the fall seemed natural, like a return to the old days before I had made discovery. It was a fine . . . day. . . . I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering. . . . I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde." - From Jekyll's confession, this lengthy statement thoroughly explains Hyde's creation and his overwhelming influence on Jekyll. It reconfirms that Jekyll and Hyde are one character and that the potion eventually brought out Jekyll's powerful desires.
"Frankenstein" Excerpt
"Frankenstein" Excerpt Quotations
"a light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect which it illustrated" - The speaker feels as he has been enlightened as symbolized by the shining light.
"I was surprised that among so many men of genius who had directed their inquiries towards the same science, that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret" - In this quotation, the speaker has set himself apart as he has conceived an idea no one else has in his society.
"After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter" - Progressing with the evolution of life and death, the speaker has successfully set himself apart through making his idea reality.